


A Lousy Christmas

by The Wicked Symphony (SymphonyWizard)



Series: Of Shields and Widow’s Bites [9]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arguments, Christmas, F/M, Heavy Angst, Holidays, I'm Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22053553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SymphonyWizard/pseuds/The%20Wicked%20Symphony
Summary: Steve and Natasha go to Tony's cabin for Christmas.  It's also Morgan's first Christmas.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark/Pepper Potts
Series: Of Shields and Widow’s Bites [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1189417
Comments: 29
Kudos: 56





	A Lousy Christmas

_It’s the most wonderful of the year_

_With the kids jingle belling_

_And everyone telling you “Be of good cheer”_

_It’s the most wonderful time of the year_

The song plays on the radio as the car rumbles along. The streets are mostly empty, with only the occasional car passing by. Out the window, snow dances in the air, painting the world in white. Not long ago, there were many homes that would accompany that whiteness with multicolored lights. There are still some, but not as many. There aren’t even as many people to occupy the homes. Many of the homes that are no longer occupied have been ransacked and have been replaced with squatters. 

It might have been a distraction, but Natasha had spent a good amount of time trying to get the world back under control. It’s more of a law enforcement task, but it’s all she could to keep herself from being swallowed by her own misery.

The song continues like a cruel joke. It should have been the most wonderful time of the year. But how can it be when barely two years ago, half of all life turned to dust? Parents lost their children. Children became orphans. Beloved pets, precious wildlife, and plants that is all indiscriminately gone because of a madman who snapped his fingers. And if that wasn’t enough, people who weren’t turned to dust died because there wasn’t someone else who could fly a plane, or people got lost at sea because they couldn’t navigate the ocean, or even got stranded in space. Recovery efforts have saved a significant number of people at sea and in space, but still planes full of people crashed all over the world.

And it’s all because a group of people who couldn’t stop that madman from not only snapping his fingers, but also acquiring all the stones that made his impossible feat possible. Worse still, when they tracked him down in the hopes of stealing the gauntlet and reversing what he had done, they only discovered further disappointment. He destroyed the stones. 

So much chaos erupted following the Snap. Widespread panic was amok. Homes weren’t the only places that were ransacked. Shops, businesses, pharmacies, and even hospitals were picked apart. In some places, the rioting and looting lasted for weeks. Most of what was left of the Avengers did their best to quell the chaos, at least where it was really bad, but Steve wasn’t there. 

The effect that the Battle of Wakanda, and the news that Thanos destroyed the stones had on Steve was profound. Natasha knew his pain—shared his pain. They lost what was most precious to them. They lost their two-year-old son. They had not even seen very much of him. They were fugitives of international law. Taking their son with them wherever they ran was out of the question. They weren’t going to do that to him. So they left him in the care of Clint, who agreed to a two-year house arrest sentence to be with his family. 

They planned to take James with them to Wakanda, but they never got the chance.

Natasha died when she lost her son. If only she knew how to console Steve. How could she when she felt the same pain he did? But while she used her grief as a means to keep fighting, even channeling out as a form of anger towards criminals, Steve was in shock. She couldn’t get a word out of him for months. He wouldn’t even look her in the eye. More than once, she found him standing in their son’s nursery at the Avengers compound for hours on end. She sometimes had to force him to eat.

Finally, when his birthday came along, Natasha tried to do something special for him. She wanted to make him dinner. She was doing well until she accidentally sliced her hand while chopping an onion. It was pretty bad, actually. She went to the infirmary, planning on cleaning it up herself, but Steve appeared. He didn’t say a word. He only took her injured hand in his and inspected it. She didn’t know what would happen. She didn’t even know what to say. Then he guided her to a sink and she let him move her around as he cleaned her hand. Then he applied antibiotic cream before finally wrapping it up in a bandage. Lastly, he planted a kiss on her injured hand. 

He didn’t say a word, but as he held her hand to his lips, tears began to spill down his cheeks. All she could do was reach up and gently guide his face towards hers. He looked her in the eye for the first time in so long and she saw all of her hurt reflected in his eyes. His tears built up into sobs and he fell to his knees before her. She held him to her. She didn’t need to say anything. She just let him know she was there for him. 

Eventually, he started speaking again, but he grew increasingly distant. When they went to bed he started turning away from her more. During the day, she barely saw him. When she did, she couldn’t help noticing how he has grown increasingly perfunctory towards her. She tells herself that he is taking the stages of grief very slow, but that doesn’t mean she has to appreciate it.

He barely touches her. They haven’t had sex since before the Snap. He showed up for dinner on their most recent wedding anniversary, but he said very little. Eventually she even gave up trying to make conversation. When she started finding him on the couch instead of bed with her, she really started to wonder if he still loved her at all.

Honestly, Natasha wonders if the cause for Steve’s distance is the fact that Tony is a new father. It wasn’t long after they brought Tony back from the stars that Pepper became pregnant. Natasha was happy for them, but also sad. Her son had recently turned to dust and now Tony was welcoming his own daughter into the world. Now it’s Christmastime and Tony has invited people to his forest house for a party. 

Natasha’s opinion about the party is twofold. On the one hand, she thinks it’s in poor taste when so much has been lost so recently. On other hand, she applauds him for attempting to bring back a sense of normalcy after everyone had lost so much. 

Soon, Tony’s house begins to appear through the snow-encrusted trees. The house is a multicolored explosion of Christmas lights and a blow-up snowman. Natasha remembers that time when Tony surprised Pepper with that giant bunny with the exaggerated bust. Being a father seems to have tamed Tony a bit. He’s still as ostentatious and flamboyant as ever, but it’s as if he has completely removed “innuendo” or “risqué” from his vocabulary. It’s impressive to Natasha that he managed to create a G or PG-rated atmosphere for his daughter.

She hasn’t seen little Morgan Stark since Tony and Pepper came home from the hospital with the infant. She was so happy for them. It was a lively little celebration for the newborn. That was months ago. 

Tony did come to Natasha for advice on how to deal with the sleepless nights that came with a newborn. It made Natasha smile because at one point, she was calling Clint and Laura for advice on how to deal with James’s crying. He was a quiet baby. He cried, yes, but still he was relatively quiet. It never took much to get him to go back to sleep. Even so, she and Steve didn’t get a full night’s sleep for six weeks at least. 

Morgan, on the other hand, seemed to be a bit more of a colicky baby. Tony isn’t a stranger to not sleeping as much as he should, but up until that point it was because he was too busy with his toys. One of her conversations with him found him thinking out loud. He thought about making a “nurse bot.” As if Pepper would ever let one of Tony’s robots handle their daughter. Even Tony admitted that he wouldn’t let a robot handle his baby. He would never even handle his baby in one of his suits. 

Natasha offered to babysit at one point or another, but Tony politely declined. 

Now she’s seeing Morgan again for the first time. It’s not unfair to say that she is quite nervous. A little ache squeezes at her heart like a sponge when she thinks of how she could have introduced her son to Morgan. They could have been friends. 

Steve parks in front of the house. He takes a deep breath. Natasha braves a look at him. He stares up at the house thoughtfully and lets out a deep sigh. Then he unbuckles and gets out of the car. Natasha watches as he comes around and opens the door for her. He offers his hand. She hides her smile. At least he hasn’t forgotten his manners. She takes his hand and allows him to help her out of the car. Then together they walk up to the house. 

She doesn’t know if it’s voluntary, but she and Steve take a harmonious deep breath as they reach front door. Steve is the one who rings the doorbell. Not a minute later, the wreath-covered door swings open to reveal Pepper. Everyone told Natasha that she looked great post pregnancy. She doesn’t even have any stretch marks to complain about. She hasn’t seen Pepper’s bare belly, but even so, she also looks great post pregnancy.

Natasha remembers fondly when Tony would call her, asking about how to deal with a hormonal Pepper. In some ways, it made her reminisce from when she gave Steve hard time during her pregnancy. Pepper wasn’t as violent as Natasha was during her hormonal period. She was, however, very irritable and Tony didn’t know how to deal with it. 

Pepper looks exceptional now as she always does. She’s wearing a black sweater that’s off the shoulders. A pearl necklace decorates her neck that contrasts with the diamond Christmas wreath earrings dangling from her earlobes. Her hair hangs around her shoulder in a sleek braid that is tied off with a glittery red ribbon. Her silky black pencil skirt matches her sweater, along with her black, snowflake-printed stockings. 

“Steve, Natasha, we’re so glad you could make it!” greets Pepper. She steps aside and allows them in.

Steve, ever the gentleman, lets Natasha in first. She steps into the house and is immediately flooded with warmth and lively chatter. She feels Steve’s hands on her shoulders and she slips out of her coat. She looks down at herself thoughtfully. She wasn’t in the celebratory mood, and she’s more than capable of putting up the façade of a happy woman. Nothing the Red Room put her through could ever prepare her for the heartache of losing a child and not being able to bury him.

She would never voice it to Steve, and she feels dirty enough for ever thinking of it, but maybe the Red Room knew what they were doing. Maybe there is more logic to not having children or significant relations than she gives credit for. Thinking such thoughts made her so sick; she wanted to gouge her own eyes out so that she wouldn’t have to look at her own filthiness.

“Wow, Natasha, you look gorgeous!” marvels Pepper. “And I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

Natasha welcomes the distraction from her thoughts as she looks down at herself again. She’s wearing a long-sleeved red sweater dress with a dipping, yet modest neckline. She doesn’t think she’s shown off her cleavage in so long. Even when wearing her Black Widow uniform, she zips it up higher than normal. With the sweater dress, she is wearing thick black stockings to protect her legs from the cold. She also touches her hair self-consciously.

Her hair was so damaged from bleaching her hair to that silvery blonde so much; she eventually cut most of it off. She misses having a lot of hair. Her bangs are now long enough that they touch her lips when they hang straight down, but still she has forgotten how long it can take for hair to grow out.

“Thank you, Pepper,” and she means it. She looks her over. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” 

It’s Pepper’s turn to look self-conscious as she looks down at her belly. “Thank you. I’m just thankful that I don’t have an awful lot of stretch marks. I also had to shed a few pounds after Morgan was born.”

“How is Morgan?” asks Steve, speaking up for the first time. 

As if in answer, Tony appears and he has Morgan in his arms. The baby looks so cute. Her hair and eyes are dark. So far, she seems to take more after her father than her mother. She’s dressed as an elf in complete with little shoes with curls at the toes. Tony compliments the look with a white turtleneck sweater featuring a green tree on the front glittering with little LED lights. The sleeves are striped like candy canes. 

The look matches the decorations of the house. A large Christmas tree is in a corner of the room and the ceiling is outlined by Christmas lights. There’s a wreath on every door and there are holographs of snowmen and of Santa’s sleigh. That sleigh floats through the room on some dedicated trail, much like an invisible model trainset. 

There are other people here too. Natasha sees Rhodey and Thor sitting in armchairs talking. It looks like Thor has been putting on some weight. She also sees Bruce. She has only spoken to Bruce a few times since the Snap. From what she can gather, he has all but thrown himself into his research, especially regarding how to manage the Hulk. She also sees Carol Danvers. Natasha doesn’t know the blonde very well, but in the handful of times that they met, even from their first encounter, she hasn’t cared for her attitude much. Even the talking raccoon—which is still the hardest thing for Natasha to wrap her head around, is here. He is having a lively conversation with Rhodey and Thor. He and Thor seem to have a bit of a rapport. Thor even incorrectly refers to him as a rabbit. She also recognizes the kid, Harley, who she knows has history with Tony. That’s the extent of the people here whose names Natasha knows.

Also, to complete the colorful atmosphere, light, piano Christmas songs are playing. Natasha hasn’t even seen the snacks yet. She is sure there are plenty of cookies. If Clint was here, let alone in the mood for baking, the refreshments would be sublime. She doesn’t know who did the baking, but she’s in the mood the at least try something. 

Right now, thought, she can’t help laughing at Tony’s sweater. “For an ugly sweater, that’s a nice sweater,” she says. 

Tony whines playfully. “That’s hurtful, Rogers, and merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Natasha echoes. She meets him for a hug, careful not to squish his daughter. Whether is it was her or him, the toddler starts fussing anyway. She quickly backs away.

Tony shushes the baby. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just your Auntie Widow.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Auntie Widow?” she repeats with a teasing grin. She doesn’t mind the sound of it.

Tony shrugs as the child calms down. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Natasha mulls it over in her mind for a second. The last children who called her that turned into dust. Bitterly, she feels that she would rather them be dead than for them to know the man their father has become. Clint has made it hard to contact him, let alone track him down. The only evidence of where he’s been is the blood and carnage he has left in his wake. 

Now here is this young girl, so perfectly innocent and having been born into literally half of what the world used to be. She will never understand what people lost when the Snap occurred. Hopefully, she will never have to experience such loss. Then the little girl meets her gaze and suddenly Natasha is frozen in place. 

She hasn’t seen that much innocence since…since… Even thinking of her son forms a lump in her throat. Finally, she smiles at the child. “No, I don’t mind at all.” 

“Would you like to hold her?” asks Tony.

The question catches her off guard. She hasn’t held a baby since she held her own. She meets Tony’s gaze. His features are normally so blank and deadpan. This time, he is only smiling. Being a father really has been a good thing for him. He is definitely more outwardly cheerful. She would believe Tony if he told her that he was a faithful husband, but him not being a flirt? She would think the world turned on its axis if Tony was capable of not being a flirt in any capacity. Right now, she’s only looking into the eyes of a father who is overjoyed to have this tiny new person in his life. 

She knows the look, because she saw the same look in her husband when James was born.

A smile spreads across her face as she holds out her arms. Tony gently eases the toddler into her arms. She smiles down at the dark-haired girl as she finds a chair to sit on. 

“She really is a beauty,” she says in earnest.

Tony shrugs. “Well, I don’t know. She is a baby. Most babies are pretty u…” he stops midsentence. Natasha follows his gaze and her eyes land on Pepper who has her hands on her hips. “She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

A small chuckle finds its way out of Natasha’s lips. She looks back at the baby in her arms. “ _I’m your Aunt Natalia_ ,” Natasha introduces in Russian. “ _I’m sorry you were born into such a harsh world. There are a lot of people who would have liked to have known you. My own son would likely have welcomed you as a sister from another mother. But we can’t all have everything._ ” She takes a deep breath. “ _I’ll protect you with my life, little girl._ ” 

Morgan’s eyes don’t leave Natasha’s as she speaks. Even if she were at an age where she could understand, Natasha would be surprised if she was taught Russian. Natasha smiles and touches Morgan’s nose with a little, “Boop.” Morgan giggles. 

That giggle is soon drowned out by a “Ho, ho, ho.” The party guests laugh as Santa Claus appears. Natasha recognizes it immediately as Tony’s long-time bodyguard and close friend, Happy. Truth to be told, Happy looks in better shape than Thor does. Still he makes a good Santa Claus. He dressed as Santa for James’s first Christmas. 

Morgan quickly grows excited as she sees the Happy-Santa. It sounds so weird when Natasha says it in her mind. Happy is a good friend of hers. She remembers their first meeting. It must have been ten years ago. He was to give her a “lesson” in boxing. She would say that she might have revealed too much of herself when she brought Happy down the way she did. One good thing that came out of it was that Tony had some respect for her. He still ogled her as if she was to be his next sexual conquest, but at least he has some respect for her.

The Happy Santa sits down on a chair next to the stone-mantled fireplace. “Ah, where is baby Stark?”

“Oh, Morgan, it looks like St. Nick came early this year,” says Tony as he carefully takes her from Natasha’s arms. “And did Santy Claus brush his teeth or did he binge on cookies?”

“Watch it, Tony,” grumbles Happy, but everyone laughs as Tony walks over to him and gives him Morgan. Morgan giggles happily as she sits on Happy’s hip. It’s a good thing that Morgan is the only child here. “Now, Morgan, have you been a good girl this year?”

“She better be; she made her mother go through thirteen hours of labor,” says Tony, making everyone groan. 

“He just had to share that,” mutters Pepper who is standing next to Natasha. Then Happy does something that surprises her. He sets Morgan down on the ground, on her _feet_ and she stands! Pepper covers her mouth. “Oh my God.” 

Natasha’s heart constricts as she watches Pepper and Tony drop to their knees. 

“Come on, Morgan, come to Mommy,” encourages Pepper, sounding on the verge of tears. 

The toddler takes a shaky step forward with Happy behind her, probably in case she falls. Everyone in the room is watching now as the toddler takes another step forward. She doesn’t have a clear sense of direction, but she does know who her parents are. 

Natasha beams at the little one as she walks unsteadily in a general direction towards her parents. However, she soon bypasses her parents. For a minute, Natasha thinks that Morgan will walk towards her, but soon she is also bypassed. All eyes follow little Morgan as she continues walking. Soon it becomes obvious who she is walking towards.

Natasha’s eyes land on her husband who is standing by the sliding door, staring out into the frozen lake. Steve, who has been silent and withdrawn up until now, stares down at the little girl. He smiles unsteadily. “Um, Morgan, go to your mom or dad.” Morgan, of course, doesn’t listen nor understand. She continues to walk towards him. Steve meets Natasha’s gaze. 

She flicks her eyes downward. Steve doesn’t move.

Finally, Morgan trips as Steve’s feet. Steve hesitates, but soon he stoops down and picks the child up. Morgan giggles as she rises up in Steve’s arms. Steve looks at the child thoughtfully. Natasha can tell that there’s a lot of emotion he’s holding back. Her shoulders rise and fall as she sighs slowly.

“Look at you, little Morgan,” says Steve with a soft chuckle. “You’re strong, like your dad.”

Natasha looks at Tony and he actually blushes. Being a father seems to have humbled him a little. She gets up and walks closer to Steve. 

“If you’re anything like your parents, I’m sure you’ll grow up to be an intelligent and beautiful woman,” Natasha can see Steve’s bottom lip trembling. She quickly takes the child before he starts crying. She gives Morgan back to Tony, who offers a sympathetic look.

“Sorry, Natasha,” he apologizes gently. “If this is all too much for you…”

She loves him for caring, but he doesn’t need to apologize. “Don’t apologize. You have a daughter; you have every right to be happy.” It’s so hard for her, but she’s not going to make excuses for herself. She looks back towards Steve and he’s no longer there. He’s outside now. With a sigh, she follows after him.

She steps outside onto the deck overlooking the lack and shudders at the bitter cold. Steve is standing in a corner with his hands on the railing. “Whew, it’s cold,” she shivers. “Come on, Steve, let’s get back inside. I’ll get you a cup of hot chocolate.”

“We could have had this life,” Steve says very quietly.

“I beg your pardon?” asks Natasha. 

“We could have had this life,” Steve repeats a little louder. “We could have had a home, a life, and a family.”

Natasha straightens up and sets a firm face. “Steve, this isn’t the time or place. Please, let’s just go inside. Even you aren’t completely immune to the cold.” She reaches for him, but he pulls away. He faces her and she frowns up at him. 

“Don’t touch me,” he whispers. 

Did she hear him right? “Excuse me?” her eyes briefly flick to her hands. Are they dirty?

Steve shakes his head. “I can’t…I can’t…” he sighs. 

“Steve, if you have something to say to me, spit it out,” demands Natasha.

“Fine, we should never have gone on the run!” spits Steve. “If I had just bowed my head and signed those damn Accords, then we could have been with our son as we should have! You could have stayed with our son! But no, you decided let Bucky and I escape and you became a target of the government too.”

Natasha scoffs, her eyes glittering with tears. “Wow, Steve it took you long enough to deliver that low blow, so thanks for that!”

“You’re welcome!” Steve screams. “Fuck!” he swears. 

Natasha shakes her head. “Steve, we could have been with our son and we still would have lost him!”

“But at least we would have been with him,” cries Steve. “You can blame Thor for not going for the head or that man Peter Quill, who according to Tony for lost his temper before they got Thanos’ gauntlet off, but I would trade all of that for one more day with our son. I would trade all of that so that I could watch him walk for the first time, talk for the first time, to see him go to school for the first time.”

“Is that why you stopped having sex with me in the last year?” asks Natasha, her voice breaking. “Our son’s not coming back. I would give my life a thousand times over if there was even a slight chance of getting my boy back. But he’s gone and we have to accept that.” She braves a step closer to him. “Steve, just because we lost one child doesn’t mean we can’t have another one.” She tries to look coy through her misery. She puts her hands on his face. “We don’t have to stay here. Let’s go home. Let’s make love.”

Steve closes his eyes and reaches up to grab her wrists. Natasha’s heart sinks as he removes her hands from him. He shakes his head. “I can’t do this anymore.” He sighs and heads back into the house. Natasha doesn’t move for a moment. Then she follows in after him. 

She passes the other guests who all look slightly uncomfortable. Then Natasha sees Steve. He has his coat and he’s walking out the front door. Natasha runs after him. She trips on her way to the door. Then she opens it and sees Steve walking away. 

“Where are you going?” she shouts.

“I don’t know, away from here, away from everything,” replies Steve, not turning around. 

Natasha laughs bitterly. “What so this is your last act? To walk away from everything and everyone?”

Steve stops and now he turns around. She doesn’t recognize her husband anymore. There’s no soul beyond his blue eyes. It died with everything else in the Snap. “I guess it is.” He takes his car keys out of his pocket and sets them on the ground. “Goodbye, my love.” Then he turns around and walks away. 

“You walk away from, don’t you _ever come back_!” she screams after him. But he doesn’t turn around. He just walks away into the darkness. She finally breaks down, falling to her knees as she wails. She sees her hands and then sees the glint of her wedding bands. In a fit of fury, she yanks them off of her finger, not caring how her finger stings at the force of it. She rises to her feet and then trudges around the house to the lake. Breathing heavily, she flings her arm back, ready to toss the rings into the watery abyss, but hesitates. 

She can’t do it. Steve is her heart and soul. She loathes herself for it, but she can’t close that chapter of her life. So, she just squeezes them to her heart and falls to her knees again and sobs. She doesn’t cry as hard as before. She just releases all that’s left of her hurt. 

Soon, she feels a hand on her shoulder. Sniffling, she looks up and sees Pepper. Her friend sighs heavily. “Let’s get you inside and get you warmed up.”

Natasha silently agrees and lets Pepper help her to her feet and steer her back into the house. 

“If you ever come back, my heart will always belong to you, Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Did I mention that I am so sorry?


End file.
